7. International Links and Coordination

Initially, GCDIS links and access to international data holders,
providers, and users will be accomplished through existing agency
participation in the ICSU WDC system. A number of U.S. data centers
associated with implementation of the GCDIS currently have
responsibility under the WDC system for a broad range of important
climate and global change data. All GCDIS archive sites will pursue
WDC status through the ICSU or be linked with existing WDCs. The
links for exchanging and transferring global change data and
information among WDCs vary from magnetic tapes and cartridges
and CD-ROMs to data communications networks.

GCDIS international links among WDCs will be completed or
supplemented by other media or networks to transfer Earth
observation data and information from satellite and in situ sources
for other operational or noncommercial uses that benefit the public.
Those existing and emerging international systems, services, and
their coordinating mechanisms are described in subsequent sections.
Expanding links to other international organizations and programs
concerned with global change data management will be useful in
several ways to implementation of the GCDIS.

First, links to data centers and archives outside the United States will
be necessary to access data relevant to the USGCRP and to make U.S.
data and information available to collaborating researchers and
governments abroad. To be useful, these must be permanent
archives, so that the data will be readily accessible to users well into
the future. This is particularly true for global change data, inasmuch
as assessment of change and the mechanisms responsible for it must
rely on long time series that are irreproducible. Archives for global
change data must therefore be maintained on a long-term basis,
irrespective of the changing interests of the scientist, group, or even
agency that collected and analyzed the observations. Several existing
internationally sponsored data management and archive systems, to
be described briefly later, have the long-term commitment needed to
serve as global change archives.

Second, many of these international institutions are associated with
an agency or university group that undertakes research using such
data and are therefore more than just data libraries. The personnel
associated with such centers perform the highly useful function of
using the data themselves, and therefore perform quality assessment
and ensure good documentation of the data. Such centers are in good
position to seek out actively and acquire data that are needed for
global change research, but that may not be supplied to the archive
as a matter of course.

Third, timely international agreement regarding standards, protocols,
and formats for new types of global change data and information will
facilitate access and exchange of global and regional data sets and
research information. Several existing international technical forums
for developing such agreement are described later in this chapter.

Fourth, agreement on the part of international partners - particularly
governments - will be necessary to overcome policy-related
impediments to full and open exchange of data and information.
Intergovernmental organizations provide a useful forum for
discussion and agreement among governments on data management
and exchange principles, policies, and practice.

Major impediments to the full and open exchange and distribution of
international data for global change research include

Lack of a comprehensive worldwide inventory of major
existing data bases;

Major uncertainties about the quality and accuracy of existing
data sets;

Lack of consistent international policies and protocols for data
exchange, particularly with regard to charging;

Unnecessary or inappropriate (overclassification) restrictions
on data access on the part of some governments; and

Lack of long-term (10 to 20 years) commitment from any
national or international organization to develop policies and support
programs to facilitate data archiving and exchange in some new
areas of global change research.

It should be noted that the international community is beginning to
recognize the need for consistent policies for international data
exchange. Several international organizations, including the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the IGBP, and
the CEOS, have formally adopted policy statements consistent with
the principle of full and open exchange of scientific data and
information. Although not binding on member countries, they
constitute a first step toward establishing an international norm. The
United States has adopted a similar policy - the U.S. Data Policy
Statements for Global Change Research (see Table 1).

Some of the existing systems that may serve as GCDIS archives or
that may in other ways be part of the data and information
dissemination system needed for global change research will be
described.

The ICSU World Data Center System

The ICSU WDCs were originally organized for the International
Geophysical Year (1957-58) and, upon recommendation of the ICSU,
have continued since as a network linking data providers to data
users around the world. This system is operated by volunteering
national organizations on agreed principles and policies contained in
the ICSU's Guide to the World Data Center System. All the WDCs are
staffed, funded, and maintained exclusively by the countries in
which they are located. The four main activities of the WDCs involve
acquisition, exchange, dissemination, and archiving of solar-
geophysical and related environmental data and information. As
already noted, the WDC system will provide the initial GCDIS
mechanism for international access.

The WDC system now consists of 44 archive and data centers in
several countries: The United States, Russia, China, Czechoslovakia,
the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Denmark, Japan, and India.
WDC-A is hosted by the United States, and is sponsored by NASA,
NOAA, the USGS, and the U.S. Naval Observatory. Oversight is
provided by the NAS CGED, which maintains at the NAS the WDC-A
Coordination Office. The individual U.S. centers are organized and
funded by the parent agencies, but the NAS CGED is the
information/organizational channel that connects the WDC-A system
to ICSU's supervisory/advisory group, the Panel on World Data
Centers.

In the United States, USGCRP agencies now operate 12 WDC-As for
glaciology (snow and ice), marine geology and geophysics,
meteorology, oceanography, rockets and satellites, rotation of the
Earth, seismology, solar-terrestrial physics, solid Earth geophysics,
paleoclimatology, land cover, and atmospheric trace gases. All of
these WDC-As are collocated with national disciplinary data centers
throughout the United States. The WDC-As will provide a
fundamental GCDIS mechanism for international access and data
exchange among corresponding WDCs in other parts of the world.

One of the weaknesses of the ICSU WDC system is that there are no
specific recommendations for archiving and exchange of satellite-
based data that are essential for global change studies. Whereas
some of the conventional data centers (e.g., oceanography,
meteorology, snow and ice, the new center for remotely sensed land
data) do receive and archive data products derived from satellite
observations, the present configuration may not meet all needs of the
GCDIS. However, the present system (WDC-A) maintains links with
satellite data systems inasmuch as three of the WDC-A centers are in
agencies or groups that also house NASA EOS DAACs, namely the
USGS EDC in Sioux Falls, the DOE's CDIAC in Oak Ridge, and the
University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center in
Boulder. To further expand the connection between WDC-A and
satellite data systems, further discussions are underway with NASA
regarding four additional DAAC-related data centers at the Goddard,
Langley, and Marshall Space Flight Centers, and the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.

The World Meteorological Organization Data System

Under the aegis of the WMO, several countries operate data centers
closely related to the WCRP and IGBP-Global Change: The World
Ozone Center at Toronto; the Global River Runoff Data Center at
Koblenz, Germany; the WDC for GHG, Tokyo; and the Global
Precipitation Center, Germany. A less active center that is being
revived for WCRP and global change studies, and integrated again
into the WMO system, is the International Radiation Center in St.
Petersburg, Russia.

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission's (IOC)
International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange system
(IODE) consists of about 45 National Oceanographic Data Centers as
well as seven specialized data centers for specific ocean observing
systems and techniques. The three ICSU WDC's for oceanography,
located in the United States, Russia, and China, form the apex of this
pyramidal system, serving as the final archive and distribution
centers for oceanographic data products once they have been
processed and quality assessed through the other parts of the IODE
system. The successful merging of the IOC and ICSU data center
systems for oceanography may serve as a useful model for
establishing relationships between the GCDIS and the ISCU WDC
system.

The Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Services

This ICSU system, sponsored by the International Union of Geodesy
and Geophysics and the International Union of Radio Science, is also
an outgrowth of the International Geophysical Year. The Federation
of Astronomical and Geophysical Services centers that relate directly
to the GCDIS are the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level in the
United Kingdom, the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland,
and the Sunspot Index Data Center in Belgium.

Other Data Services

There may be other independent geophysical data services, but most
of them relate to solid-Earth, upper-atmosphere, or space disciplines
that have indirect relation to global change studies.

The International Geosphere-Biosphere Program and the IGBP-
DIS

The IGBP, established by the ICSU, is designed to achieve an
understanding of Earth and its environment, to improve our ability
to detect global change and plan intelligent responses. Previous ICSU
programs (concerning the lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere,
atmosphere, biosphere, magnetosphere, and ionosphere, for example)
have successfully studied components of the Earth system. The intent
of the IGBP is to work toward realizing a synthesis on a global scale
of how these individual components interact to produce the
dynamics of the whole Earth system, with the goal of predicting the
future state of the planet into the next century.

In addition to the ICSU WDC's, which either act as archive and
distribution centers, or which produce special data products for
research, there is another ICSU data activity important to the
evolution of the GCDIS. Detailed planning for IGBP data management
has started under the Working Group on Data and Information
Systems for the IGBP (IGBP-DIS). Based in Paris and supported by
NASA and the French Ministry of Sciences, its overall goal is to
improve the supply and management of data and information that
will allow the IGBP to satisfy its agenda.

The IGBP-DIS has been most successful as the focal point for IGBP
Core Projects, to identify data needs, to build specifications for
missing or presently inadequate data sets, to conduct IGBP data
workshops, and to serve as an information link between such
services as the GCMD and the user community. Four initial projects
involving data or metadata have been identified in advance of the
specification of data needs by Core Projects:

Land-Cover Change Pilot Project,

Vegetation Imagery Diskette Pilot Project,

Overall systems analysis of important data sets for global
change studies, and

Directory of national or disciplinary directories of data sets
useful for global change studies.

These pilot projects have proved to be very useful. For example, as
an adjunct to the Land-Cover Change Pilot Project, the IGBP-DIS was
instrumental in defining the needs and specifications for the AVHRR
1-km global pilot data set now being implemented by the USGS,
NASA, and NOAA. A CD-ROM containing results from the 1st year will
be issued during 1993. The IGBP-DIS also is sponsoring an
investigation of the possibility of obtaining useful land surface
temperature data from satellite observations, and was the initial
sponsor of the IGBP African Diskette Pilot Projects, the successful
implementation of which resulted in the NOAA-EPA Global Ecosystem
Database (on CD-ROMs) and the African Diskette Educational Project.
Additionally, a new global soils data base has been started.

USGCRP agencies operating WDC-As have begun to participate in the
IGBP-DIS diskette pilot projects. Those agencies' GCDIS plans need to
be modified to include producing and disseminating space-based and
in situ regional and global data sets on diskettes or other media to
facilitate international access to global change research data and
information.

The Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
Programme

The HDP, established in 1990 under the auspices of the ISSC (the
social-science counterpart to the ICSU) is initiating an international
program of research to address the human dimensions of global
environmental change. The HDP is defining its program, analyzing
data and information system requirements, and initiating focused
projects.

Seven broad topical areas of research have been identified: social
dimensions of resource use; perception and assessment of global
environmental conditions and change; effects of local, national, and
international social, economic, and political structures and
institutions; land use; energy production and consumption; industrial
growth; and environmental security and sustainable development.
Focused projects include Land Use/Land Cover Change (together with
IGBP), and the Global Omnibus Environmental Survey. Working
groups are being formed to address focused projects in other areas of
research.

The HDP Data and Information System (HDP-DIS) will be developed
through collaboration with extant social science archives and
information sources by forming a data- and information-sharing
network that will ultimately interoperate with natural science data
and information system initiatives such as the IGBP-DIS. The
functions of HDP-DIS include

Providing services in support of HDP science initiatives, to
include data resource discovery, documentation (cataloging) and
archiving; and maintaining information services such as guides and
bulletin boards;

Identifying computer-processing and data-resource services in
support of HDP science computing, analysis, and data integration
needs such as geographical information systems, decision support
and modeling capabilities; and

Accessing extant networks and developing interoperability
among extant and future information archives and centers that will
support HDP science intitiatives.

HDP-DIS is now undertaking an assessment of requirements and
implementing elements of an emerging concept of operations. An
HDP-DIS Data Users Group and two advisory panels are being formed.
These are a Data Resources Panel, chartered to determine the
requirements of the HDP focused programs, and a Data Sharing Panel
that will develop working relationships among active archives and
sources for relevant and required socioeconomic data.

The development of an Internet-based HDP information service is
being explored. A catalog interoperability test will explore the
applicability of the CEOS metadata model and the IDN concept in the
HDP domain. This metadata-sharing experiment will use
socioeconomic data archives and sources worldwide in one of the
first attempts to link data resources using network-based resource
discovery tools. Coordination with the CEOS-IDN is planned to ensure
future interoperability. Coordination with the System for Analysis
and Training is essential to ensure technology access for developing
countries. HDP-DIS activities have been integrated since inception
with NASA's EOSDIS through the EOSDIS Socioeconomic Data and
Applications Center, managed by CIESIN, which is providing initial
HDP data services and coordinating system development.

The Committee on Earth Observations Satellites

The CEOS was created in 1984 as a result of the Economic Summit of
Industrialized Nations to serve as a focal point for informal
international coordination of space-related Earth observation
activities. Its areas of concern are mission planning, data access,
networking, data product standards, compatibility and
interoperability of data products, services (including catalog, data
access, etc.) and applications, as well as instrument calibration and
validation of satellite data with ground truth data. The CEOS is a
voluntary mechanism operating by consensus.

The members of the CEOS are NASA and NOAA for the United States,
the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) for Canada, the Chinese Academy
of Space Technology and the National Remote Sensing Centre for
China, the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales for France, the Indian
Space Research Organisation for India, the Instituto Nacional de
Pesquisas Espaciais for Brazil, the Science and Technology Agency
(STA) for Japan, the British National Space Centre for the United
Kingdom, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana for Italy, the Deutsche
Agentur f?r Raumfahrt-Angelegenheiten for Germany, the
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization for
Australia, the Russian Space Agency and the Russian Federal Service
for Hydrometeorologyand Environment Monitoring for Russia, the
European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Organisation for the
Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) for Europe, the
Swedish National Space Board for Sweden, and the National Space
Agency of Ukraine. In addition, CEOS observers include the
Norwegian Space Centre for Norway, the Canadian Centre for Remote
Sensing for Canada, , the Science Policy Office for Belgium, the Crown
Research Institute for New Zealand, and the Directorate General 23
for the European Community.

NOAA and NASA have worked for the past several years to broaden
the perspective of CEOS beyond its original narrow focus of land-
oriented applications of remotely sensed data to encompass the
broader range of global change research and environmental
monitoring. The CEOS Plenary group has accepted this view of CEOS,
and has accepted as CEOS affiliates the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), the ICSU, the IGBP, the IOC, the WCRP, the WMO,
the UNEP, the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), and the Global
Ocean Observing System (GOOS).

The CEOS comprises a high-level plenary group with a policy focus
and two supporting working groups. The Sensor Calibration and
Performance Validation Working Group is now focusing on sensor
intercalibration required for global change research. The Working
Group on Data (CEOS-WGD) is concerned with coordination of data
management. The CEOS-WGD is active in the development of the CEOS
IDN as a first step toward international data and information system
interoperability, networking, development and adoption of standards
for international data exchange formats, development of a lexicon
and data dictionary, and assembly of a global 1-km AVHRR data
set.

The WGD has developed a coordinating relationship with Panel 2 of
the Consultative Committee on Space Data Systems, which is
concerned with developing (through a formal process) internationally
agreed recommendations for standards in areas relating to data and
information exchange.

The CEOS-WGD has created subgroups working at an implementation-
coordination level in several areas. These are a Formats Subgroup,
working on data exchange formats; a Catalog Subgroup, working on
the CEOS-IDN and catalog interoperability in general; a Network
Subgroup, working on ground networking between CEOS agencies
internationally; and a subgroup on Auxiliary Data Sets.

The Earth Observation-International Coordination Working Group
and the International Earth Observing System

The objectives of the EO-ICWG are to promote the IEOS as an
integrated Earth observing system to advance understanding of the
Earth system, to promote effective use of Earth observation
spacecraft (e.g., by coordinating payload planning), and to promote
continuity of operational services provided currently by NOAA's
polar-orbiting satellites and development of future operational
services.

The EO-ICWG was formed in 1986 by NASA, NOAA, and the ESA to
coordinate polar platform programs and payload planning. Current
participants are: NASA and NOAA for the United States; the ESA and
the EUMETSAT for Europe; the STA, the Ministry of International
Trade and Industry (MITI), the Japanese Environment Agency (JEA),
the Japanese Meteorological Agency, and the National Space
Development Agency (NASDA) for Japan; and the CSA for Canada.
These agencies are known collectively as the International Partners.
The current role of the EO-ICWG is to coordinate and implement the
IEOS, which is seen as the coordinated aggregate of the participating
agencies' end-to-end Earth observing systems (i.e., space and
consensus).

The EO-ICWG has to date identified the following missions and their
supporting ground systems as elements of the IEOS: for the United
States, NASA's EOS missions and NOAA's operational Polar-Orbiting
Operational Environmental Satellite series; for Japan, NASDA's
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Advanced Earth
Observing System (ADEOS) missions; and for Europe, the ESA Polar-
Orbit Earth Observation Mission (POEM) missions. In many cases
other agencies will provide instruments, including the MITI for EOS,
the CSA for EOS, the MITI and NASA for ADEOS, NASA for TRMM, and
NOAA and EUMETSAT for POEM.

The EO-ICWG has recognized that implementation of the IEOS would
require coordinated efforts in data management. Rather than form a
new data management group, the EO-ICWG requested that the CEOS,
which had already created an effective forum for informal
international coordination, assume responsibility for addressing IEOS
data management issues.

Proposed Global Climate Observing System and Global Ocean
Observing System

The GCOS and the GOOS are two newly planned and interrelated
global-scale observing systems with significant data management
components. When even partially implemented, it will be essential
for the GCDIS to establish links to its elements. This should not be
difficult, since U.S. agencies - particularly NOAA - are playing key
roles
in the planning and implementation process. Internationally, the EOS
is expected to provide a core component of the mature GCOS and
GOOS systems. Related data management responsibilities have not
been specified, but no doubt the WDC system will play a key role, at
least in the interim.

Planning for the GCOS is led by the WMO, with joint sponsorship by
the UNEP, the IOC, and the ICSU. The GCOS will collect, manage, and
distribute data and information relevant to prediction of climate
variability and global climate change, including in situ and remotely
sensed data. Four components are planned: oceans, atmosphere,
terrestrial, and cryosphere. The WDC system is studying how various
relevant centers can undertake data management roles for data
resulting from the GCOS and the GOOS, bearing in mind that the data
flow is primarily designed for operational (near-real-time) use, and
special arrangements may have to be made for parallel or delayed
processing for research-grade data products.

Planning for the GOOS is led by the IOC, with joint sponsorship by the
WMO, the UNEP, and the ICSU. The GOOS will consist of five modules -
climate change, health of the ocean, living marine resources, oceanic
conditions (for operations), and coastal zone management. The
climate change module of the GOOS will, in large part, serve as the
ocean component of the GCOS. Initially, the GOOS will be based on
existing programs, including, for example, World Weather Watch,
Voluntary Observing Ships, the Integrated Ocean Services Station
System, and the IODE. Strong links are planned with such research
programs as WOCE, the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere
Experiment (TOGA), and the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS),
and the GOOS will no doubt be modified by their results.

Both the GCOS and the GOOS were strongly endorsed by delegations
to the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, held in
June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, and thus have broad support among
both industrialized and developing nations. Access to relevant data
and information on climate variability and global change is
considered essential for developing countries to wisely manage their
coastal areas, water resources, agriculture and fisheries, and land use
for sustainable development.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The IPCC was established to advise the International Negotiating
Committee for the Framework Convention on Climate Change, and is
sponsored by the WMO and the UNEP. The IPCC conducts a scientific
assessment of climate change every few years, focusing on
immediate issues and consequences, and prepares in-depth summary
information for policymakers, so that realistic response strategies can
be created to manage climate change issues. Thus, the panel is both a
user and a synthesizer or producer of information.

Many of the requirements specified by the IPCC are being addressed
by continuing international programs. Relevant international projects
are coordinated by the WCRP, sponsored by the WMO, the IOC, and
the ICSU, and by the IGBP, which is also sponsored by ICSU. The
program on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change,
recently established by the ISSC, is expected to fulfill some of the
IPCC requirements for social science data and information.